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It’s really easy to think that you have to be on every social platform there is in order to get your ideal client’s attention. But trying to show up everywhere can lead to basically just one thing: burnout. (Sorry Gary V)

Jennie & Alyson talk about where they are, where they’re not, and why they’ve made the decisions they have.

Episode 39 – How to build a sustainable social media strategy with Katie Brinkley

Publer – our favorite social scheduler

Alyson Lex
It's really, really, really tempting to try and do it all when you're running a business. I know this, because I've been there, you get that shiny object syndrome when you see a social platform that is working for other people. And you think I have to be there. And then our last episode, we talked to Katie Brinkley about this a little bit. And it was such a big deal that Jenny and I decided, we were going to do an entire episode just on choosing where you're going to show up. And so that's why today we're talking about where you should be showing up. And why we're not on Twitter. I love that we're not on Twitter. Me too.

Jennie Wright
Okay, I want to ask, I want to start this off by asking you. Where are you on social media?

Alyson Lex
And where are you? Not?

Jennie Wright
We already know it's not Twitter. But why?

Alyson Lex
So I have profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, clubhouse. And I've played with Pinterest, even though that's not technically social media have played with YouTube. I am the most active on Facebook and clubhouse. I am not on anything else for my business. And I have picked those two. So Facebook, I've kind of always just been on, right? And I we all like we like, yeah. But the majority of my audience is there. And that is how we can best interact. So one of the things that I really took away from our conversation with Katie from the last episode, is not just to consider where they are, but how they like to get their information. The information that I want to give to my people tends to be a little bit longer than a tweet. Yeah. And it's not as image based as Instagram. So while I'm on Instagram, I'm not super active on Instagram. Yeah. Like I'm kind of, I'm getting more active because of clubhouse. Sure. And I have chosen to be on clubhouse for a couple of reasons. One, because I had a serious case of FOMO. And I wanted an invite and I wanted on like that's we're just there marketing worked really well on me. But also, I have never gotten onto a platform when it's relatively new or in beta. I've never been the early adopter. And I wanted to try it out. This one seemed like it had the best option for me because again, you get that interaction. And that longer form content opportunity, rather than say, tick tock that's short, with very little interaction and that sort of thing. So it's again, how can I teach my people? How can I reach my people without stretching myself so thin that I go crazy?

Jennie Wright
It's also a platform that you like, because I Well, you also like clubhouse so that you can show up in a hoodie and a messy ponytail and deliver like truth bombs all over the place? Like that's a preference. Yes,

Alyson Lex
yes. I love being able to not have to worry about the hair on the face.

Jennie Wright
Not that you have to worry anyways, just get out there. But yeah, it's I mean, yeah, so when we're when we do stuff like Facebook Lives, obviously, we're a little bit more, you know, Cognizant and aware of how we're coming across visually, which is something that you and I have both had to work really hard on just because of our own personal feelings about how we show up in the world. And that's, you know, it's easy to just pop on club hosts or schedule room and just drop in very ad hoc in that particular way not worrying about those other things, which I totally get now with all transparency I was like edgy club hosts for both the three weeks I think because I don't like the shiny object thing. I don't like the pylon to the new thing kind of Personally, I'm just not a joiner. Like I'm so not I'm so hang back, watch other people you know, run like lemmings to the cliff and see what happens.

Alyson Lex
So, real quick nerd break. lemmings don't actually run off cliffs that way. Totally staged by Disney. I'm just saying no tricks are true. But I totally understand what you mean. And I tend to not be that way, too, or either or whatever is grammatically correct. So for me, it was, I have typically done x. And I have gotten these results. Let me try why, and see what results I can get from that. So I remember talking to you about this. And I said, this is an experiment. I want to see what happens. I want to see how I can leverage this to drop to drive traffic to my offers. And I think that that's also really important. Don't show up on these things just to show up.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, I'd love to talk about that a little bit, quite honestly, because that's why we're not on Twitter.

Alyson Lex
Right. Now, we're not on Twitter. Yeah,

Jennie Wright
like our ideal client is not on Twitter. ideal client, our ideal client doesn't go on Twitter. We're not in politics. We're not sports broadcasters. Our ideal client plays on Facebook is on Facebook all day long. They literally our ideal client has the Facebook tab open all day. And is checking it multiple times on their phone when they're not at their desk working. Right. And, you know, if you're like me, I have all my notifications turned off. And I know Allison has her notifications turned off. But when we open our phones, one of the first places we're gonna go is open up the Facebook ad app and look at the notifications, you know, on the app itself. Those are our ideal clients. Our ideal clients are always like they're in their sponges, they're information gather, they're gatherers, they're asking questions participating in Q and A's. They're not on LinkedIn, per se, but they have a peripheral. They have a peripheral knowledge of LinkedIn, our ideal client probably checks LinkedIn a couple of times a week. But they're not on it all day long. like Facebook. Exactly.

Alyson Lex
Right. Yes. And so I'm on LinkedIn. In order to connect with people, I use the messaging of LinkedIn. And on Instagram, I use the Instagram dm more than to use the feed or any of the other ways that you can create content,

Unknown Speaker
and I'm the opposite.

Alyson Lex
You use the feed. And you don't message on Instagram, or I

Jennie Wright
get a lot of messages, but they're mostly spam. Not gonna lie. Well, yeah. unsolicited, like, you know, baby, will you believe the Bleep and I'm like, Oh, no, spam smacks around.

Alyson Lex
That happens

Jennie Wright
in a lie. But it happens very rarely, thank goodness. But I use the feed as a way to connect with people. So I find that if I put pictures of myself on my Instagram feed like on as opposed, I get interaction, and I get some comments and things like that. There's a lot of people still using bots, which I noticed, which is like throwing up a heart. Every time I do a post, there's like a heart or a flame emoji. And I'm like, Why? You know, but there's occasionally and it's growing more and more where I'm actually getting comments like, wow, this is really good. And then, you know, I agree. And then and then they'll say why I'm finding that that's growing my Instagram faster. I know with a club post, people use the DMS and Instagram, which is what you've been using it for, which is great. I don't think I've gotten to that point, because I'm really not getting those Instagram messages from anybody. My connection point is usually Facebook DNS, which is where I'm finding people, because quite honestly, I don't have the Instagram app

Unknown Speaker
open

Jennie Wright
half the time, so I would never know that I'm getting messages. My niece messaged me for my birthday on Instagram. And I didn't check it for a month. Sorry, Katie, I love you.

Alyson Lex
Well, and that really just kind of brings it home, how you're using it and where your people are. The thing is, Jenny's clients may be on Instagram. My clients may be on LinkedIn. And would it maybe be beneficial for us to utilize those platforms a little bit more? Possibly. But there's also a decision to be made. Jenny and I had to make this decision A while ago with System to THRIVE the podcast. Where are we going to focus our energy for our content? Is it Yeah, and we were gonna go hot and heavy into Pinterest for a while and I i squirreled away on shiny things like here's how to Pinterest market and I tried an ad and I did this. And then I realized that it was taking time and energy to focus on something that was taking away from something that I already knew would work for us. And so that shiny object syndrome can take you away from what you already know is working and pull you to something that is untested and unproven. You can't do all of them well, without a massive team on your side.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, so let's, there's something there with the whole Gary Vaynerchuk, nothing against the guy, but the whole post 25 or 30 times a day, it can really make you feel pretty crappy. If you're not able to do that, you're just not able to do that. So let's talk about that. There's this, I've heard different things. So Katie Brinkley said, you don't have to post five times a day, there was somebody else that we interviewed a while back, who was like you have to post five or six times a day. And so there's this differentiating opinion or differentiating opinion, of what we need to be doing. And I think we need to forgive ourselves and give ourselves the space to post as much as we're able. And however, we're going to be like, however, we're going to be like, able to do it. In the beginning, when I was trying to post on Instagram, and people were like, Yeah, you got to post like, five, six times a day, I'd be like, What now? No, I don't have time for that time. Like, I don't have like, literally, it was a wine like, I don't have time, because I didn't, I was like, give me a break. But the more I've gotten into being able to post regularly, your capacity for more grows. So I'm able to do more, because I'm now in the like the schedule and the rotation of it, and I understand it more. And I just have the ability for more because I've up leveled. But Jenny three, four years ago was like, you know, screw that not doing it can't make me next, right. I'm pretty stubborn. And I will dig my heels in.

Alyson Lex
And I'll be like, not doing

Jennie Wright
it. And my partner was like, you got to be on Instagram, you got to be on Instagram. And I was like, I'm not doing it. And I was giving him all sorts of grief. And now I'm on Instagram, and he gives me side eye and I'm like, you're right. I'm on, don't worry. But we have to, I think the message that we're trying to create from today. And I think that's the important part is be where your clients are, do what you can, when you can add more, you know, and the testing. If people are like, Well, what do I post Allison, what do I post Jenny? Well, you got to test it out and see what your audience likes, right? All sudden, like,

Alyson Lex
we got to figure out,

Jennie Wright
you know, is it real? Is it cuz I think Katie Brinkley said there was five different ways we can post on Instagram. And I think we both were Like what? Like, figure out what your audience likes, and then multiply on it, right?

Alyson Lex
Yeah, so when I post on Facebook, my audience tends to like when I post template II or formula based things that help them achieve something right, then my audience goes crazy for that. They're not as big on, like the marketing thoughts from the brain of Alyson Lex. They want that highly actionable implementable information. I know that Jenny's audience really loves when she's able to post something personal. Your audience just goes nuts. So for that the spoons, the spirit will always remember the spoons. I think that was really when you and I have that light bulb about your audience like, Holy guacamole. They love this. Yeah. Shocking. So understanding what your audience is really looking for, is going to help you figure out what to post and you can't do that without testing. I've posted personal stuff. And I usually get a couple likes, and frankly, one of them's always my mom.

Jennie Wright
You're looking for honesty, though. Your mom likes my stuff to

Alyson Lex
my mom just likes everything. She's my mom's that that Mom, you know what I mean? She's super supportive, and I love her so much. But that's not gonna help me make money. Like I love you, Mom, but you're not making me money here. So is the personal stuff really what I should be sharing 99% of the time? No, of course, I'm going to put personal stuff on my feed. I'm a person. I have a life. But if I want to speak to my audience, I'm going to talk about what they want to hear from me. Jenny's audience does not like it when she's all business all the time. They want to get to know her. They want the personal stuff. That's what makes her money.

Jennie Wright
They want me to post muffins.

Alyson Lex
They love they love her recipes. She still owes me a recipe for this chocolate bread. She posted like six months ago. I've been asking her every month and she says she'll send it and she doesn't. I'm just saying. Yeah, I'm now shaming you in front of our entire audience. But she's going to now strike that balance between business and personal. And what's more is she's going to figure out and she already knows this, what kind of business lessons are people want and so she posts those You can't do that until you test it out. You can't figure out what your audience wants, unless you land on them. You can ask them, and they'll tell you, and I guarantee you 99% of the time. They're not even sure. No. They just know what they like when they see it. Yeah, and then you have to test it out. You have to test it out. So don't be afraid to try some different tactics and, and angles. But also don't feel like you have to be everywhere. That's the basis of this. I have never been tempted to get on Twitter.

Jennie Wright
I tried it.

Alyson Lex
I tried it. I tried it for like, a minute and a half.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, I tried it for I think it was it was a couple years ago, I tried it for like, three or four weeks, maybe. And I promoted my first summit that I did way back in like 2013 2014. I promoted it on Twitter, thinking that that was where I was gonna, like really shine. Nothing like absolutely nothing. I use Twitter, if somebody says that, like crap is happening in the world. And, you know, I mean, like, that's where I will go and check stuff out. Because Facebook, what was it two years ago had these news feeds. And now those are gone, right? For the most part, they're gone, like the breaking news kind of stuff. And so I will occasionally go to Twitter, if somebody's like, Oh, my God, things are happening. And I will go and check it out there a lot less now this year, which was, it's nice. But I will definitely, I'll definitely use it for those like breaking news kinds of things. So it's no big deal. But I'm not on Twitter to grow my business. It's just not a tool. And the message, I think Alice and I are really trying to rammed down your throats in the most polite and gentle way is go where you need to be where your ideal client is. And don't worry about the rest. The other thing is start with one, get good. Understand, then move on. Don't try and do like if your ideal client is on Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram like ours are, you don't have to master all three. And by the way, we learned this the hard way, the content that you make for Facebook is not the same content that you make for LinkedIn, which is not the same content that you make for Instagram.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, Katie was just talking about that, heck, yeah. It's really tempting to think, Oh, my perfect person is on Facebook. And then another section of my person is on LinkedIn. And if I'm, it's that FOMO, that fear of missing out on a potential sale, or what have you. And what ends up happening is you're spreading your energy so thin, because the content is different, that you're not showing up well in either place. So it would be better for you to show up really well on one platform. And I totally understand the danger of FOMO. I live with it every single day. It's really hard to have this fear that you're missing out on something potentially huge and potentially important for your business. But if you don't focus your energy on one thing, you end up scattered. And I remember Jennie in a previous episode, we were talking about plans or something. But you talked about it, you're on a path. And if you get distracted from that path, you go down this like little fork. And then you get distracted, you go to another fork, and all of a sudden, you're light years away from where you meant to be. Yeah, that's what FOMO does to you.

Jennie Wright
It is it's like taking it's like going down. Like you have to go down the highway to get to a destination and you're like, Oh look, a shopping mall, like on the exit. And you take that exit and you go to that shopping mall. And then you see another sign for like, Oh look, another shopping mall. And now you've gone down a completely separate road. And before you know it, you're you know, way far from your destination which you planned on getting to and you're nowhere in the same direction. And now you're just like going How did I end up here? Right? It can really like Allison's right. It can really cause problems when you do that. Stay focused,

Alyson Lex
stay focused. So what do you do instead? Pick the one where you're the most comfortable and your ideal client is. So in my, in my case, my ideal client is on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I am most comfortable on Facebook. That's where I show up the most. Okay, the clubhouse thing is a test The jury is still out. I'm giving it an old college try from a non college grad. And that's okay. I think that it has really big potential. I have seen good results from it. So I'm feeling optimistic. But the majority of my effort, attention and energy is on Facebook and cultivating my audience there. That's where I'm the most comfortable. And they are there. You do the same thing, find that intersection, where you're comfortable and where they are focused there first.

Jennie Wright
Yep, it's good intersection. Look at. Let's talk about how and I think we've also talked about this before, but it's not getting overwhelmed by using multiple platforms and worrying about how you can post and, you know, having to go from this to that, to this to that to try and get all your information out. There's a lot of ways that you can do this. I tend to sometimes, you know, if you if you want to, you can use facebook, facebook allows you to post under your business profile, like your business page on Facebook and your Instagram account if you connect the two. So that's one way to do it. Right. So it's posting in both places where you can add information in both places that will help you. But how about the other platforms? Right? How do you post on LinkedIn? How do you post if you're posting on Pinterest? If that's your if that's your desire? How are you posting on Pinterest? where like, how is the ability to do that. And Allison, I have happily adopted the use of a posting scheduler for us that specifically allows us to recycle content. And here's why we recycle content, I want to talk about this too.

Alyson Lex
We recycle content. Because this was another game changer thing that you said in a previous interview, you've got a bunch of these. Not everybody's going to see everything you post all the time. Right? I see everything Jenny puts on her business page, because I have notifications turned on. I do that so that I can support Jenny on her business page. I love you, Jenny. But I am probably the only one that has notifications turned on. For every post on your business page,

Jennie Wright
same, same, same, same thing, right?

Alyson Lex
What that means is that it's not popping up in everybody's feed all the time the algorithm has made it so not everybody sees everything you post all the time. That's okay. So by recycling the content by reusing the content when we can so I know that some platforms like Twitter, do not permit this. Pinterest doesn't like it, all that good stuff. They're not like super big fans of it. But by setting it to go out on some kind of schedule, when it is something simple, like a podcast promotion, like Hey, did you catch this episode, here's what it's about. It allows us to get in front of more people, we do space it out. It's not hitting every week. Maybe once every couple months, we'll pop a post in about a previous episode to keep those numbers going. So if you've created a lot of content, like we have with this podcast, that is an opportunity for you to recycle your content. But where the scheduler can be useful for you is batch creation and upload. And I know Katie talked about this, in the last episode was sitting down for an hour scheduling everything out. And for a while people didn't want to use schedulers. Because Oh, Facebook isn't going to show it as much from the business page, because it came from a third party Scheduler. And there's probably still some more validity to that still. But guess what, they're not showing a whole lot of your business page posts anyway. Right? So why not make things easier? And you're?

Jennie Wright
And I love that because it'll it'll be somebody will say, Yeah, I saw something from because nobody's going to my business page or your business page and scrolling back six or nine months, okay, let's just be honest, they're not doing it. Unless they're about to drop a pretty penny with you. And they really want to know who you are, then they might go and search your profile pretty deep. totally understand. Love it, support it, go for it. I do still get likes on videos and things that I posted a long time ago.

Alyson Lex
But

Jennie Wright
one of the things about your message, and this is really important with social media is the repetition. Right? And like talking about the way that I said this before, which Allison was referencing is that nobody's gonna see like your message and you kind of worried like, but can I just keep saying the same thing all the time?

Alyson Lex
Yeah, yeah. Can

Jennie Wright
I get on my soapbox? And I talked about list building ad nauseum because if 10 people today, tomorrow, it's way down the feed, nobody's gonna see it. If 100 people see it today, it's still waiting on the feed. And if I repeat it in three weeks, it's a whole brand new batch of people that may see it, or even better, and I'm cool with this, the same people get the same message, maybe a slightly different way. And it finally clicks for them. And they're like, fine, Jennie Fine, I'll build my darn list because you told me to. And they'll, you know, I mean, which is how I've worn Alyson down, by the way, over the years to finally

do some things like running a very successful challenge. By the way, at the time of this recording, kudos to Alyson for finishing an amazing five day challenge. And just super, super doing the best job. I'm so excited for her and getting some really great results. And I think she's actually looking forward to the next thing, which is her summit in June. So yay.

Alyson Lex
There is a lifespan for a post on every network. Twitter is a couple of minutes. I think Instagram is a couple of hours. Facebook is a couple of days, Pinterest is a couple of months. YouTube is a couple of years. Think of it that way. So on Facebook, it's a couple of days. And then you can post the same thing again, because the likelihood of people going through your whole feed, as Jenny said, is slim to none.

Jennie Wright
Yep. Really, really is. And it's easy to it's easy just to change and repeat. So this has been an interesting episode, because you know, we've kind of we've kind of laid in on some of the stuff that Katie Brinkley would said in Episode 39, which we highly recommend you go and listen to. And we will definitely put that in the resource section for the Notes for this episode, so that you can grab it. And we're also going to give you a little bit more information on the scheduler that we use Allison I use. And so you can check that out as well. It's called puzzler. And it's really, really good. It's, it's actually really, really useful. I've used other schedulers and this one is this one was kind of in beta when we first joined it, and they're adding some really cool features that we're just like gaga over which is awesome. So go and check it out. If you're not already subscribed to the podcast, we highly recommend that you do because then you won't miss any episodes like this and the episodes that we have with our experts as well as our Monday quick tips, and some really cool drop episodes that we do on occasion, which we think you would find valuable. We hope that you're enjoying this podcast, leave us a review, let us know and if you need support in your business in terms of copywriting with somebody amazing like Alyson Lex the direct response copywriter who I call it the queen of copywriting, or if you need help with your funnels and your list building and Alison and I both do strategy. If you need that help head on over to System to thrive.com check out the work with us tab, see if it's something that you would be interested in doing and then connect with us. We would love to hear more about like more from you and be able to connect with you that way. Thanks so much for being here, everybody. We appreciate you so much. And we'll be back We will be back again very soon answering another big question.